“The Evening Hour”
Precise, patient, and rife with painful truths, Braden King’s “The Evening Hour” opens on the image of an Appalachian landscape, serene and sun-dappled even as the camera pans to capture a far-off explosion. Life feels like that, subdued then minatory, around the coal-country milieu of this slow-simmering drama, where folks know each other’s business, most grew up together, and all are trapped to varying degrees by an influx of opiates that’s poisoned the few opportunities they had. To nursing aide Cole (Philip Ettinger), selling Oxy on the side isn’t just about saving up to skip town; he’s steering friends clear of a bigger-deal drug lord (Marc Menchaca) while doing his best to stop them from ODing. But when a childhood friend (Cosmo Jarvis) returns, upsetting this tenuous equilibrium—and, for good measure, Cole’s relationship with girlfriend Charlotte (Stacy Martin)—“The Evening Hour” is unflinchingly honest about the fallout. Known for playing a soul-sick environmentalist in “First Reformed,” Ettinger drills down into the similarly conflicted psyche of a man making whatever choices help him fend off his grim circumstances for a little longer. It’s an impressive performance in a film that deserves widespread attention for the subject matter as much as its striking execution.
“I Am A Town”
Photographer Mischa Richter turns a soulful eye on the place his family has long called home in this poignant documentary, which premiered at MoMA’s Doc Fortnight before opening Provincetown’s own “reimagined” virtual/drive-in festival last month. At the easternmost tip of Cape Cod, Provincetown enjoys its reputation as an outsiders’ haven; walking the main drag would in any other summer mean meeting all manner of artists, entertainers, and street merchants (not to mention goggle-eyed tourists). Richter, though, spares that scene a mere glance before heading down side streets to introduce his main subjects: townies, some eccentric and weather-beaten, others younger yet pensive, all woven stubbornly into the fabric of a community. Richter’s filmmaking is beautifully impressionistic, and he often shoots townsfolk from a distance, strolling through painterly landscapes they seem to belong to. Leaving interviewees unidentified, he seats us at kitchen tables or by window sills, dropping in on conversations with breezy spontaneity. Included in Richter’s lineup of old salts and artisans are long-time residents who’ve since passed, like author Roger Skillings and local legend Freddie Rocha, Jr.. Their presence lends “I Am A Town,” and its portraiture, the sense of a place already slipping back into history, leaving echoes and reflections to be treasured, rightly, as heirlooms.
“15 Things You Didn’t Know About Bigfoot (Number 1 Will Blow Your Mind!)”
“Stupid in a smart way and smart in a stupid way” may be one of the most incriminatingly cynical ways the co-founder of a global media empire has ever described their own brand of journalism, but it’s also a perfect way to think about this scathingly funny mockumentary (which screened at Chattanooga under its original title, “The VICE Guide to Bigfoot,” and may have fooled a few viewers there into thinking it was the genuine article). The feature debut of Adult Swim collaborator Zach Lamplugh, working from Brian Emond’s hokey-jokey script, it follows Jeff (Emond), a journalist for clickbait-savvy Compound News weary of deep-dive reporting on “artisanal antibiotics” and dodging bullets to cover Ukraine’s craft-beer scene. But when he’s sent to search for Sasquatch in the Appalachian foothills, accompanied by a YouTuber (Jeffrey Stephenson) who calls himself the “Cryptid Commander,” Jeff questions how much he’ll risk for the story. It’s all agreeably daffy without pulling punches in its comedic assault on VICE-styled “immersionism.” Any genre-savvy streamer with a sense of humor could turn this wacky, wily outing into a headline-making hit.
